


snakes and ladders

by seventeencrows



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Time Travel, an attempt at explaining kepler's unspeakable ego, eiffel making a general nuisance of himself, kepler sits down buckles up and doesn't enjoy the ride, time loops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 05:10:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11479302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventeencrows/pseuds/seventeencrows
Summary: Warren Kepler is not a patient man, or a kind man, or a man possessing of much in the way of mercy. But one thing he's discovered he suddenly has, in abundance, is time.





	snakes and ladders

**Author's Note:**

> if it’s going keep being a thing where an episode drops and i end up writing a new fic for it, i think i’m going to be in trouble
> 
> and look, all i'm saying is weird time loop shenanigans seem to have a history of happening to the folks in command, whether they're an alien or not

He hasn't gotten this far before.

The station is a shitshow and the crew is losing their minds, and there’s a blinding crush of searing pain where his hand used to be but this—Kepler hasn’t done this before. At least, not that he can remember. And _that’s_ the joke if he’s ever heard one, his memory, his _recollection of events as they’ve happened;_ it’s better even than any long story short he could tell, and this one? Well, he’s actually _living_ this one.

 

It’s Day 990 of this neverending hellscape of incompetence and petty tragedy, that first time, and the Hephaestus is shaking to bits around him as Minkowski attempts to steer them clear of another impending disaster. He’s had a headache fit to wake the gods in their ivory halls all day and Officer Eiffel isn’t helping, freaking out in a blatant display of unprofessionalism that Kepler has come to expect from him and yet always hopes, against all odds, that he will learn to curb. It’s a bumpy ride, to be sure, as the engines roar around them and lambast them with heat, as Eiffel next to him is losing his grip (literally, on the controls; figuratively, on the situation) and in fact, it reminds Kepler a lot of—

“Officer Eiffel,” he shouts, but it’s lost to the grind and boom of the machinery around them, shouts louder, “You ever ride Space Mountain?”

Eiffel whips around to look at him like he’s gone insane and then—

And then, he’s waking up in his own quarters. And then, the Urania’s automated mother program is informing him that they’re nearly two-thirds of the way to their destination. And then, Jacobi is paging him over the PA system, telling him that he “might want to take a look at this, sir.”

Eiffel’s craft is exactly as he remembers it, a blip on their radar at first and then a sad amalgamation of crushed dreams and twisted steel up close. Their conversation is the same, too, and Kepler finds himself leaning forward to open a comms channel and asks—asks _again—_ “Uh, say again, U.S.S. Horrible Unending Nightmare?”

And Eiffel snaps, just like out of a dream, just like Kepler _remembers it,_ “I said go away! I don’t want to talk to anyone right now!”

Kepler frowns and Maxwell arches an eyebrow and Jacobi looks up at him and it’s all right on eerie, exact cue. Instead, he responds, “Well, all right, but we have received your mayday and thought you might like a hand. Do you copy?” And while Eiffel shouts something else incomprehensible and insane and then slowly begins to figure out that he’s not about to die, alone and forgotten, in the bumfuck boondocks of space, Kepler starts to think.

He's heard about this happening before, theoretically, and when he wakes up the next morning he expects it to start again, for them to come upon Eiffel's shuttle and have their same bizarre exchange. But Eiffel is already on board this morning, and the morning after that, and the one after that, and all the ones after that. They arrive on the Hephaestus and dispose of the plant monster, and Kepler makes clear to Hilbert exactly where he sits on their ever-expanding food chain, and his team keeps Lovelace from sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong. He knows this game now, sees the tapestry as it unfolds in front of him; he’s ready for what comes next, for the deep space signal and Dr. Maxwell’s impending accident, he’s already done this all once before and he’s _ready for it._

But then he’s telling Eiffel, “When you got a pig that good? You don’t eat it in a single sitting,” and he _blinks—_ and the Hephaestus is a swiftly growing dot in the distance out the window and Eiffel is across the room with Jacobi as they pour over the last minute details of coupling to the dilapidated station, and Kepler closes his eyes. And the clock starts over.

Kepler likes it well enough, at first. It’s jarring, sure, and makes very little sense and he mentions it in one hail to Cutter only to find that the man doesn’t recall it the next time that time resets so he is, effectively, on his own. But he’s working with all the pieces now, he can see the whole board laid out before him like a treasure map. He finds it doesn’t actually change much, knowing things, but it’s worth the look in Minkowski’s eyes, the way they’re so keen on playing nice with the new kids because Colonel Kepler is just a _little_ strange, a little too keen and too present and it’s almost, he overhears Eiffel mutter to Hera one day, _it’s almost like he’s done this all before._

He treats himself to a glass of whiskey when he passes his latest checkpoint, when Minkowski gets them through the storm and _“You ever ride Space Mountain?”_ is yesterday’s wisecrack, but just as he hits the dregs of his drink he realizes that tomorrow, when it comes, will be uncharted territory. He’s caught up to himself on the mobius strip now, and he’ll go into tomorrow on the same playing field as the rest of the crew, staring out across the board instead of looming over it. And tomorrow comes, and the next day, and the next week and month and he turns a blind eye to the slowly growing stockpile of napalm and the frantic, overlapping bullshit tall tales of how his whiskey ended up floating through deep space and Hera’s histrionics and he waits. It’s fine if he doesn’t have all the information, if he makes the wrong call; he’ll do it better the next time around.

He starts to think that maybe this is it, game over, about three days into the module mission. The data in the Black Archives was scant and piecemeal and seemed more like the ravings of a lunatic than it did any sort of concrete scientific analysis, but it was adamant about one thing: change. Kepler’s not entirely certain what he’s done differently, how minutely he’s shifted the scales each time to break out of each ride on the merry-go-round, but perhaps this is enough. Perhaps this is the sum of all his actions, the final shove he needed to be free of this, and Kepler thinks he may almost miss it. Until—until it’s day five and the module docks, and half his crew returns wide-eyed and white-faced and scared of their own shadows, until he orders everyone but Jacobi to clear the room, slams him against the wall with a gun under his chin and hisses, “Are you sure?” inches from Jacobi’s face.

He sees the way Jacobi’s hands tremble and hears how his voice shakes, watches him break into a smile too wide and too scared when he blurts, “You tell me, sir,” and tells himself that he’s had so much _time,_ so many tries at this game, that he has to be able to _tell,_ he has to know if this is Daniel or a clever, clever trick—

But there’s a rook in his hand now, a pawn in the other as he sets up a chessboard he remembers pulling off a wall months and months ago. He doesn’t have to look up to know who’s sitting across from him, to know what comes next. “Chess? You? Me?”

Lovelace balks, just like he remembers, just like the first time. “I’m not—”

“Now?” He says over her, gets ready to play this game all over again, “Would you prefer black or white?”

 

And this now is his record, the furthest he’s gotten in all the times he’s done this, in all the rounds he’s watched and played and won and lost, and the metal of the brig is cool against what’s left of his wrist as he settles in to wait. They’re on day thirty-four of Day 1093, by his reckoning, by the time Lovelace finally comes to see him. He keeps his eyes closed as the locks grind and groan and disengage, blinks them open as Lovelace crosses her arms and scowls down at him, bites out, “Time.”

Kepler smiles, slow and steady like he’s got all the time in the universe. Perhaps he has. “Time?”

It’s not what she expected—his calm, his amusement, his acquiescence after she’s spent thirty-three days explaining the same thing to the same people with the same result—and Lovelace balks, _just like the first time,_ but soldiers on. “Time travel. Time _loops._ Possible?”

Kepler leans back against the wall, sees the chessboard reset, all the pieces lined up in their rows and waiting for him. He gets ready to play this game all over again. “Theoretically.”  

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact, i actually deeply dislike the game snakes and ladders


End file.
